How to Price Food for a Home Kitchen Business in Pakistan

More and more Pakistani home cooks sell food from their kitchens: biryani for office lunches, frozen samosas and kebabs for Ramadan, desserts for birthdays, or full dawat orders. The cooking is usually the easy part. The hard part is setting a price that’s fair to customers and still leaves you with real profit. Many home businesses quietly lose money because they only count the meat and rice. Here’s a clear method.

Step 1: Work out the true ingredient cost

Start with the recipe exactly as you make it for sale, for a fixed number of portions, and add up every ingredient: meat, rice, oil, onions, tomatoes, spices, yogurt, everything. Small items add up, especially oil, ghee and dry fruit.

Every recipe on this site has an “Estimate the cost” panel. Enter the prices you actually pay, set the number of servings, and it works out the ingredient cost of the dish. Your prices are saved on your device, so you only enter them once. For bigger orders, the dawat planner adds up several dishes for a number of guests.

Add a small allowance (5–10%) for spices, salt and the bits that are hard to measure. The calculator includes this allowance, and you can change it.

Step 2: Add the costs most people forget

• Gas or electricity: long-cooked dishes like nihari and haleem use a lot of gas. Estimate it from your monthly bill.
• Packaging: containers, foil, bags, labels, napkins and spoons. For frozen goods, freezer bags or boxes.
• Delivery: fuel or rider charges, if you don’t charge them separately.
• Waste and tasting: a few portions are always lost to testing, spills or burnt batches.
• Cleaning supplies, water and kitchen equipment that wears out.

Step 3: Pay yourself for your time

This is the cost home cooks forget most often. Count every hour: shopping, prep, cooking, packing and cleaning. Decide a fair hourly rate for your work and include it. If you don’t, you’re working for free, and the business will be hard to keep going when you’re tired or busy.

Step 4: Add a profit margin

Profit isn’t the same as paying yourself. It’s what lets you buy better equipment, absorb price rises, and survive slow months. Many small food businesses aim for a margin on top of all costs, then check the result against what similar sellers in their area charge.

A simple formula

Price per portion = (ingredients + overheads + your time) ÷ portions, plus your profit margin

A worked example

Suppose you make a pot of chicken biryani for 10 portions:

• Ingredients (from the cost panel, with your prices): Rs A
• Gas, packaging and other overheads for the batch: Rs B
• Your time: 3 hours at your chosen rate: Rs C

Cost per portion = (A + B + C) ÷ 10. Add your margin, round to a clean number, and compare it with local prices. If your price is much higher, look for savings in ingredients or packaging, or make your offer clearly better (bigger portions, better quality meat, home-style taste). If it’s much lower, you’re probably undercharging.

We’ve left the numbers as letters on purpose. Prices differ a lot between cities and change every month, so always use your own current prices.

Tips for pricing well

• Re-check costs every month. Meat, oil and milk prices move quickly.
• Price per kg or per portion, and say clearly how much a portion is.
• Have a minimum order for dawat and catering orders.
• Charge for extras: raita, salad, extra naan, disposable cutlery.
• Take an advance on large orders to cover ingredients.
• Freeze-friendly items like shami kebabs and samosas can be made in big batches when you have time, which lowers your cost per piece.

Food safety and registration

If you sell food, you’re responsible for it being safe. Follow good hygiene, keep raw and cooked food separate, and be careful with storage in summer; our summer food safety guide explains the basics. Provincial food authorities, such as the Punjab Food Authority, have rules for food businesses, so check what applies to home kitchens in your area before you grow.

Pricing properly from the start doesn’t make you greedy. It makes your business last.